


Where You’re Meant To Be

by Morgane (smilla840)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: AU, Alternate Meeting, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilla840/pseuds/Morgane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Battle of Canary Wharf and its aftermath, with a twist. Ianto doesn’t get Lisa out. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where You’re Meant To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at my livejournal.

Ianto had been down in the Archives when it started. He probably wouldn’t even have noticed until much later if the alarms hadn’t gone off and the room gone into lockdown. All things considered, it was probably the safest place to be, the heavy doors protecting Torchwood One’s many secrets and making it the hardest place to get into of the entire facility.

The hardest place to get out of too.

And Lord knows Ianto _had_ tried, because his whole team was out there, and Lisa was out there, and God damn it he had to get out of there. He had to do something, had to help, because God only knew what was happening but clearly it was bad, and when he had tried to contact someone, anyone, all he had got was static.

It felt like days passed before the alarms finally shut up. The sudden silence rang into his ears and for a second he thought he had gone deaf, but the loud click of the vault’s doors unlocking told him otherwise.

He was on his feet and running out of the room in seconds, gun drawn because who knew what could still be happening on the other side of that door. The sight that awaited him stopped him dead in his tracks. Fire and chaos and bodies everywhere, and he just stood there, frozen. A loud rumble from somewhere deep in the building and falling plaster shook him out of his daze and he took off running again, because he had to find Lisa. Had to make sure she was okay, had gotten out, because obviously everyone couldn’t just be _dead_ , could they? Over eight hundred people worked here, he had to come across someone soon. Right?

He had never felt so alone in his life as he jogged through the empty corridors – except they weren’t really empty, were they? People, his co-workers, his _friends_ , lying there, staring at him with their eyes wide open and where was Lisa? He could feel hysteria rise inside him because he couldn’t find her, couldn’t find anyone not dead, and God was he the only one left alive in this place?

“Can anyone hear me?” he finally shouted, giving up on stealth altogether because right now he didn’t care who found him as long as someone did.

A noise to his left startled him and he twisted in that direction, gun at the ready, but it was only another piece of ceiling coming free. He lowered his arm, and the next thing he knew he found himself on the floor, not remembering how he had gotten there except his head hurt like hell. Right. Falling ceiling. The whole place was coming apart and he really shouldn’t stay there. The smart thing would be to head for the exit, except he wasn’t feeling very rational right now, and all that mattered was finding Lisa. He wasn’t leaving her in this hell.

Pulling himself back on his feet through sheer force of will, he swayed and waited for the world to stop spinning and the nausea to go away. Then he opened his eyes, pushed the despair away and with renewed determination, he took off again. 

Floor by floor, he searched until it felt like he had been in this maze that used to be his workplace forever. And finally, _finally_ he thought he heard voices. Two of them, coming towards him. 

Though it was highly possible he was hallucinating or going crazy. 

Still he wasn’t taking any chance. He flattened himself against the wall and tightened his grip on the gun. Friends or foes, he thought frantically. Were they responsible for this? Did they know what had happened? Were they survivors like him? What…

Two men rounded the corner, stopping the flow of Ianto’s questions. They appeared to be human – well, this _was_ Torchwood, who knew who had been doing the attacking? – and heavily armed, and Ianto wasn’t taking any chances.

“I’ll ask you to stop right there,” he called out, his voice weaker than he would have liked. His breathing sounded too loud to his ears and he could feel blood running down his face, but he was glad his aim remained steady.

“Wow, wow _wow_ ,” the man he was aiming at said, raising his hands in the air. “Stand down. We’re here to help, okay?”

Ianto blinked at him, not really registering the words.

“Look, why don’t you put the gun down, and we’ll take you some place safe. Alright?”

Ianto’s eyes narrowed as he tried to make up his mind. What if it was a trick? How could he know they were telling the truth? Still, it wasn’t like he had much choice. There were two of them and only one of him, and while he had had the element of surprise on his side, he was in no condition to press it to his advantage. 

The man seemed to sense his dilemma and holstered his own gun, taking a step forward.

“We’re here to help,” he said again, softly, and Ianto’s gun wavered. He let his hand drop back to his side as he swayed, grateful for the wall’s solid presence behind him. Everything was a bit hazy, and wouldn’t it be funny if they killed him now?

“Here we go,” the man he was no longer holding a gun on – why wasn’t he again? Ianto frowned, trying to remember – wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him stand. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

That snapped Ianto out of his daze. He shook his head stubbornly, his relief disappearing as he remembered his mission. “Got to find Lisa,” he mumbled, trying to get away from the man.

“How about _we_ look for… Lisa, is it? and you get looked at?”

Ianto considered it but his mind wasn’t really up to par and before he knew it he was being dragged towards the nearest staircase.

“Where is everybody?” he asked, bewildered, but got no response from the man helping him other than a wince.

“We’ve got a survivor,” the other one said behind them and Ianto twisted a little to look at him, almost missing a step. Just had to make sure he was talking to a comm. link or something. Just in case.

Then they turned right and found themselves in another part of the building, near the Science Department. It wasn’t as badly damaged as the other wing had been and there were more people there, none that Ianto recognized but they wore UNIT uniforms and maybe he could finally relax now. Everything would be fine. Help was here, they would find Lisa, and everything would be fine. They had to be.

As they drew closer, he saw there were also people in white coats milling around, and… He stopped walking abruptly.

There were people, people hooked to machines, dozens of them.

“Come on,” the man tugged him forward but something – some _one_ – in the corner of his eyes made Ianto dug his heels in. He tried to look closer, tried to see what it was that had caught his eye, and when he did his breath caught in his throat.

“Lisa,” he whispered, and scrambled away from the man supporting him to reach his girlfriend’s side. She was… she was… What had they done to her? “Oh God, oh God…” he whimpered, trying to understand what he was seeing but his mind was only coming up with a big blank. This wasn’t supposed to happen!

Trembling, he reached out to touch her before snatching his hand back. What was he supposed to _do_?

“Lisa?” He whispered again and a harsh sob broke free when she opened her eyes, unfocused and pained.

“Ianto?”

“Yes, I’m here, everything is going to be alright now. I’ll take care of everything, don’t worry.”

Then her eyes were glazing over and someone was next to her, pushing something into her veins – morphine, Ianto hoped.

“What happened?” When he got no answer, he whirled around. “What the FUCK happened?”

The sudden movement turned out to be a bad idea and the last thing that crossed his mind before he blacked out was that this had to be a nightmare.

\---

When he woke up, he found himself on a cot in the corner of a room. Not a dream then. His head was still throbbing dully and when he touched it he found the crisp material of a bandage there. 

Lisa. Right. Had to find Lisa.

Pulling out his IV with a wince, he stood up on wobbly legs and was grateful when he didn’t fall down on his face.

He had barely taken two steps when an exasperated “where do you think you’re going?” made him stop. He turned around, finding himself face to face with a man who looked faintly familiar. Right. He had been one of the men who had found him. Though he was now wearing a white coat.

“Go lie down. Now.”

Doctor then. Well, his bedside manner sucked.

“I’m going to find Lisa,” Ianto stated and started walking in – he hoped – the right direction.

There was a sigh behind him and a mutter of _“I so didn’t sign up for this”_ followed by _“Jack, Jones is up.”_

In the end he did find his way back to the room where Lisa had been. It wasn’t that difficult, since it turned out to be where everyone was. They didn’t pay him any attention as he quietly made his way towards Lisa and sat down, taking her hand in his own.

And waited.

Soon ‘Jack’ – at least, he figured it was Jack – appeared next to him, an unreadable expression on his face.

“What happened?” Ianto asked again, because he was damned if he wasn’t going to get his answers, one way or another.

“What do you know?” the man asked, eyeing him carefully.

Ianto had to bite back a sob. “Nothing. I was in the Archives when the place went into lockdown. I was locked in there the whole time.”

Jack nodded. “You were lucky.”

Ianto snorted – right, lucky – and Jack shot him a sharp glance.

“Cybermen and Daleks went to war against each other. The Tower was caught in the crossfire.”

“What about…” Ianto gestured helplessly towards Lisa and all the others like her.

“From the looks of it, cybermen decided to increase their army by converting humans. When they were stopped, the people already in the conversion units were…stuck.”

“What does that mean? Can we… get them back?” Ianto asked, squeezing Lisa’s hand. They had to.

Jack just looked at him sadly. “They’re trying.”

\---

The first day, two died when they tried to get them out of the conversion units. So they stopped trying and said they were waiting for a specialist from Japan. Ianto remained at Lisa’s side through it all. She was heavily sedated and hadn’t opened her eyes again, but Ianto couldn’t leave.

It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be anyway.

So he waited. Jack was gone, and Ianto found himself alone with Lisa. No one bothered him though – they had gotten used to his presence, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have clearance. He had been debriefed again, by UNIT and the PM’s office but he knew he hadn’t been much help.

Numbers started to trickle in and Ianto tried not to listen because he had found Lisa, but where were his friends? His team? Were their bodies lying somewhere in a corridor? Had they been converted? Was one of them even still alive?

Then Doctor Tanizaki was there and that had to mean they would find how to help Lisa soon, didn’t it? But days passed without any improvement. They tried again, and again they failed.

One night, one of the nurses insisted he go home and get some rest. He gave in.

The next day, they were all gone.

\---

They buried Lisa in a small cemetery where she had grown up. Her parents were there and sobbed during the entire ceremony.

When it was over, Ianto found himself at a loss of what to do. He didn’t have a job, the Tower still in shambles and too many personnel dead. He could probably get a transfer somewhere but right now working for Torchwood was the last thing on his mind.

Because he was angry. So angry. Part of him knew they had done all they could, understood that they had been a potential threat. But how could they have done it? They had been people, helpless, and they should have found a way to help them instead of issuing termination orders. It wasn’t fair. So many had died, why couldn’t they have saved that handful?

Why couldn’t they have saved _her_?

\---

In the end, Ianto went home. Not to London, London wasn’t home anymore. Home to Cardiff. It was only when he stepped inside the house he had grown up in that he realized how much he had missed his hometown. And there was no memory of Lisa here – there just had never been time, even for a week-end.

Ianto had thought there was no reason to hurry.

He put his bags down in his childhood bedroom, reminding himself this was only temporary ‘til he found an apartment when the walls started closing in. He didn’t do so well with enclosed spaces since he had been forced to stay in the Archives for hours.

His parents tiptoed around him, unsure of what to do with him. He couldn’t blame them, really. After all, he couldn’t exactly tell them what had happened. So he had settled for as close to the truth as he could, the official version – ‘something’ had happened at work, people had died, his girlfriend included. That was all there was to it.

Then he found a place, and moved in with relief.

His suits got relegated to the back of his closet and he spent a lot of time walking around the city, getting his bearings back.

And he waited. Waited for the pain to fade, for himself to start feeling again, for the numbers to stop running over and over again in his head. Seven hundred and ninety-six dead, twenty-seven ‘survivors’. Out of those, twelve had been out in the field that fateful day and four were on sick leave. Then there was Ianto, and ten others.

The ‘lucky ones’.

Except Ianto still didn’t feel lucky. He wondered if he ever would. Because the only thing he felt beside numb was guilty. It just didn’t seem fair, that he was still alive and that the others were dead. Chris and Matthew and Natalie and so many others. Lisa.

The psychiatrist HQ had insisted he saw – and that must mean they had yet to decide whether to ret-con him or not – said it was normal, that he just needed time.

Then again, what did she know? She knew nothing about cybermen or watching Lisa turned into some sort of half-machine and the people they both worked for deciding to cut their losses. She just knew about a bombing in his workplace in London that killed a lot of his co-workers and survivor guilt.

Once, to see how she’d react, Ianto had told her about the gun he had taken to carrying around every time he left his apartment. She had paused then, looked at him kindly and said he was just looking for ways to feel safe again. Ianto figured she probably thought he was paranoid.

He hadn’t had the heart to tell her about the Rift in Cardiff – even if he did, she’d probably end up being ret-conned anyway – and that he didn’t fancy running into a Weevil empty handed.

So yes, paranoid he may be – considering that in all his years previous to his days at Torchwood he had wandered around Cardiff weapon-free and never ran into anything – but Ianto preferred to think of it as being practical.

 

Days passed. He worked in a small coffee shop and it was as far from his job in London as it could possibly be. He liked it there. 

He was still waiting. He thought he was getting better though – some days, thinking about Lisa didn’t bring that fresh bout of pain he now associated with her name. He found himself smiling again, and he felt guilty because what right did he have to go on living?

And he wanted to cling to it, cling to her, except he slowly came to realize he would have to let her go – eventually.

He wasn’t quite ready yet.

\---

One evening, he was walking home when something slammed into him from behind. There was pain, sharp and bright, in his shoulder and back and Ianto stumbled, trying to regain his equilibrium, reaching for the gun tucked in the back of his jeans at the same time.

And see? This, right there, was why he carried a gun.

He found himself face to face with a Weevil, and no, he really hadn’t missed those. He raised his weapon, staring at it unblinkingly, and waited for its next move. Somewhere behind him, he heard screeching tyres but didn’t look back – he would deal with that later. Right now he had to focus on the Weevil if he wanted to stay alive, and not on possible witnesses or the blood dripping steadily down his back – though that was kind of hard because it was making him feel a little dizzy. Just his luck.

Sensing his weakness, the Weevil snarled and lunched forward, leaving Ianto no choice but to pull the trigger. He shot it thrice, aiming for the vital spots, and it dropped to the ground.

Noise behind him made Ianto turned around sharply, wincing as it pulled at his back, but he couldn’t afford being surprised by a second Weevil in his state.

But instead of a Weevil, he found himself aiming at a man who looked disturbingly familiar – and also found three guns pointed at him in return.

The four of them remained frozen for a couple of seconds until recognition hit and Ianto lowered his weapon.

“Oh, it’s you,” he muttered, leaning against the nearest wall for support.

Really, they had to stop meeting like that.

\---

The situation was somewhat ironic, Ianto reflected as he was bundled into their car and they took off to go God knew where, the dead weevil in the trunk. Here he was, bleeding all over the car seat, after holding Jack, and the one who was a doctor – he thought he had heard the woman who was with them this time called him Owen? – at gun point again.

“Is that…?” he heard Owen ask in the front seat.

“Yep,” Jack answered almost cheerfully, though Ianto really didn’t understand what he was feeling so happy about. Every time they met it seemed Ianto threatened to blow his brains out – not exactly something that usually endeared you to people. Maybe Jack was just weird. Then again, Captain Jack Harkness – Ianto was pretty sure that was him – had something of a reputation.

“Who is he?” the woman this time.

She didn’t get an answer as the car came to a stop in another screech of tyres. Ianto looked outside and realized they had arrived at Torchwood Three. He almost considered demanding that he be dropped in a hospital but he had to admit part of him was curious and despite everything he had loved his job at Torchwood One.

Torchwood Cardiff, it turned out, was nothing like London. They were only four of them, Jack and the other two plus a Japanese woman who was waiting for them when they came in. And their clothes were hardly suitable for the workplace. And the office itself… well, if you could call it an office. It looked more like the inside of a submarine, or something. And it was messy. Very messy.

“How can you work in that place?” he wondered, only realizing afterwards that he had spoken out loud and feeling heat crawl on his face in embarrassment.

Jack laughed and pushed him gently in Owen’s – and what he assumed to be the infirmary – direction.

“How indeed. Let’s get you patched up.”

Owen glared at him briefly before bossing him out of his shirt and going right down to business, disinfecting the claw marks with little gentleness.

“You need stitches,” he informed Ianto in an annoyed voice which clearly said he had better things to do with his time, but he did it anyway.

Once that was over, Ianto found himself shirtless in Jack’s office, who leered at him before handing him a shirt. Shaking his head, Ianto put it on and sat down, wondering what the man wanted to talk about.

“We’re never been properly introduced. Captain Jack Harkness,” Jack said with a smile.

“Ianto Jones. But I think you already knew that.”

The smile widened before dimming somewhat. “How are you? I was sorry to hear about Lisa.”

Ianto stiffened reflexively at the mention of Lisa but it was one of the good days and it didn’t hurt so bad.

“I’m fine,” he said. A lie, they both knew it, so he amended it somewhat. “I’m better.”

Jack simply nodded, acknowledging Ianto’s answer. There was a moment of silence

“Are you going to ret-con me, sir?”

Jack startled at that. “Ret-con? Why the hell would I do that? No, I want to offer you a job.”

Ianto blinked. Whatever he had been expecting, that certainly wasn’t it.

“Why?”

“Well, let me think. As you’ve noticed, the place is a mess. You’ve got experience, you make great coffee –” Ianto opened his mouth to ask how he could possibly know that but Jack held a finger up to show he wasn’t finished, and from the gleam in his eyes Ianto wasn’t sure it was quite safe to let him go on, “– and I know for a fact that you look good in a suit, which doesn’t hurt.”

Ianto bit back a smile. 

“You know, sir, that could be interpreted as harassment.”

“Could it be now?” Jack grinned.

“Yes. You should be more careful,” Ianto said with perfect innocence and then realized what he was doing. Flirting. It had felt nice. 

He waited for the usual pang of guilt and was surprised when it didn’t come.

“So… about that job offer? I promise I’ll behave,” Jack coaxed.

For some reason, Ianto didn’t quite believe him but he found himself agreeing. He was the first – and possibly the only one – surprised.

\---

Five months later, Jack kisses him for the first time. It’s playful and gentle and it makes Ianto feel strangely light-headed. He starts to pull away, panic surging through him – what about Lisa? – but the look on Jack’s face gives him pause. It’s both hopeful and resigned, and it doesn’t belong on Jack’s face at all.

So Ianto does the only thing he can do. He stops pretending he hasn’t fallen in love with Jack some time ago, closes his eyes and lets Lisa go.

Then he opens his eyes and smiles and kisses Jack again.


End file.
